Part of 1. 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 23 November 2016.
I entirely agree with the point the Member makes. As I said, I didn’t get to hear the whole of the Chancellor’s statement, but I did get to see the anaemic growth forecasts that the Office for Budget Responsibility produced for the next five years—I should think very alarming growth forecasts for anybody in charge of the UK economy. The OBR is not forecasting that the UK economy will return to trend growth at any point during the next five years. This doesn’t simply mean that we continue to face the impact of the lost economic activity that we have seen as a result of austerity, but that we’re not even going to return—not even going to return—to where the UK economy has managed to perform for nearly 60 years, from 1945 onwards. That should mean that the Chancellor should grasp this urgent need to invest in the UK economy to generate economic growth. Inflation forecasts surely give us cause for concern about interest rates, which will follow. Now is the time, when interest rates are at a historic low, as Adam Price has said, to take that opportunity and to invest for the future.